Always Quotes (page 236)
Many fledgling moralists in those days were going about our town proclaiming there was nothing to be done about it and we should bow to the inevitable. And Tarrou, Rieux, and their friends might give one answer or another, but its conclusion was always the same, their certitude that a fight must be put up, in this way or that, and there must be no bowing down... There was nothing admirable about this attitude; it was merely logical.
Albert Camus
Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know."...That is why I value that little phrase "I don't know" so highly. It's small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include spaces within us as well as the outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended...Poets, if they're genuine, must always keep repeating "I don't know.
Wislawa Szymborska
There are seven windows in the Queen's bedroom in the Citadel that is the center of the City that is on the lake island called the Hub in the middle of the world.Two of the seven windows face the tower stones and are dark; two overlook inner courtyards; two face the complex lanes that wind between the high, blank-faced mansions of the Protectorate; and the seventh, facing the steep Street of the Birdsellers and, beyond, a crack in the ring of the mountains across the lake, is always filled at...
John Crowley
When the talk about my troubles was loudest, I did the thing I've always spoken of most . I got still and listened for the answer to What is this here to teach me? The answer, first and foremost? Lay your ego down. Step out of your ego so you can recognize the truth. As soon as I did that, I was able to see the role I had played in creating "my circumstances," without blaming other people. And -- bingo! -- I realized that all the noise about my struggle was a reflection of my personal angst...
Oprah Winfrey
... no one ever develops and achieves self-awareness in a vacuum, beyond all ears and systems. The period you grow up in and mature in always influences your thinking. This in itself requires no self-criticim. What is more important is how you have allowed yourself to be influenced, whether by good or by evil.
Vaclav Havel